


In Between Together

by ironmessTM



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Best Friend Energy, Canon Compliant, Concerned Mom Liv, Gen, Post-S3 Finale, Ravi is a kind soul, We stan him, everything turns out fine though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 18:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19978600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmessTM/pseuds/ironmessTM
Summary: Okay so basically the teaser for the next to last episode in the series (S5 EP12), particularly the part where we see Ravi dealing with full-on zombie mode (ahhhhhhhhh I cannot get enough of him being a zombie some of the time it's pretty genius the way they portray him on brains) (I don't think I enjoyed the salesman thing all that much but idk it was still pretty funny even if it wasn't angsty) got me thinking. I decided to write a thing about...what could've happened to him, the night he took the vaccine and had Liv scratch him?This thing kind of dips in and out of lightheartedness and relatively heavy angst, and I was in a situation where it seemed like the best place to end it was at an angsty place, but I was like noPe we are going to fix that and make everything okay at the end so yeah I tried my best to do thatThis has been one of those times where I just sit down and write, fueled off of that in-the-moment muse energy that thrums around a fresh idea, and I don't know, it's been a while since I've done that and I've really enjoyed the process.I hope you guys can enjoy this too. Thank you :-)





	In Between Together

****

Ravi had returned from work a little later than usual that night, his commute home delayed due to the quickly rising panic in the city, specifically regarding the zombie outbreak that had been set into motion only hours before. He walked inside and pulled the front door shut behind him, taking off his coat and examining the already fading scratch running down his forearm. The one that might – or might not – be turning him into a zombie, right this minute. A dim wave of adrenaline flowed through his mind at the renewed notion of what could be happening inside him. Was the vaccine working? Was it failing? What was the zombification process even like? How long did the virus take to manifest itself both physically and in the mind of the infected? When he’d asked Liv these questions all these years ago, she’d said rather plainly that her having been knocked out and in a body bag didn’t make her answers the most credible, which was unfortunately true. He sat down on the sofa, currently alone at home what with Major no doubt trying to help deal with Filmore Graves’ stake in all this, and took out his phone. He pressed the button to start recording, as he always did whenever working or experimenting. 

“It has been approximately…an hour and a half,” he started, tipping his wrist to look at his watch. “since I, the subject, has received the scratch, and the zombie virus would have entered the subject’s bloodstream…more or less immediately, due to the nature of the delivery method. Subject does not currently seem to be exhibiting any physical symptoms, such as hair or skin pallor, nor does subject note currently experiencing a hunger for brains.” Ravi reached across the table to the cup of coffee he’d picked up from the station before leaving, and took a sip before continuing. “Subject still retains sense of taste in what can be noted as a normal capacity. Subject will wait, to determine if the zombification process takes time to begin, or if the vaccine, has…actually worked.” He finished, the last two words breathless as what they would possibly mean truly sank in. If this worked…Ravi will have finally done some good in the world. Granted, he’d already made a working zombie cure, but it had been stolen; all efforts for naught, with his own stupidity to blame at the end of the day. He leaned back into the sofa cushions, letting out a contented sigh as he relished the warm feeling flooding through his mind; a feeling of peace, of even joy, perhaps, he dared to call it. He’d dozed off before he even realized it, drifting in and out of clouds and stars and a world he’d helped to make a better place. For the next hour or so, everything in Ravi’s little world was just fine. Perfect as can be with no regrets and nothing to run from; just him and a world of untapped potential for good. He was happy, truly content with himself, for the first time in years.

But of course, this didn’t last.

Sometime after midnight, Ravi drifted awake with a lurch, about to reach for his phone and check the time when a stabbing wave of pain hit him out of nowhere. He seized forward, his mouth open in a choked gasp as his nerves began screaming and the burn of what felt like every bone in his body being carved out from the inside started to overtake him. A chasm of hunger and darkness began storming and raging within him, threatening with every passing moment to take him by force and never let go. His head felt like it was being torn apart, every passing thought being ripped from his grasp, but somehow; through the silent screams of his body and mind, Ravi found it in him to maneuver his shaking fingers, slowly turning on his phone and pressing record. “Th-the subject appears t-to be exp-” he cut off with a gasp as his eyes rolled in his head and his body collapsed backwards, a wave of pure adrenaline slamming him from all sides. He managed to hold up the phone in one trembling hand, and saw that his skin had gone pale, his hair well on its way there, and that his eyes…they were red, seething little voids of pure, unbridled rage. Angry red veins stuck out on his forehead and around his face, and he realized with a start that…he…

He was a zombie.

And he was angry.

The sheer rage that had begun bubbling and boiling within him caught him by surprise, quickly taking what little was left of his thoughts by storm. He'd never felt anything so horribly strong, before; it was as though something was stirring within him, and he was powerless to keep it from assuming control. Never had anything been so overwhelming, so overpowering in every sense of the word. The broiling ire, chilling like the flames from which it was forged, practically flowed through his veins, building and building with every pulse of his heart.

He tried calming himself down, but found the agony rolling up and down his spine and thundering across his mind only strengthening in awful vigor as it sought to tear him apart. He drew his knees close, holding himself as tight as he dared and tilting his head back, a silent prayer escaping his lips as his eyes slid shut. “Please…” he murmured, although to what or whom he wasn’t sure. The pounding in the back of his skull heightened, and he sat like this, the world collapsing within him, for longer than he could fathom. The unabating torture stretched every moment out into a thousand, until he had no concept of time whatsoever. But soon, the fever of sorts broke, and his haze of pain-incinerated half-thoughts began to clear, contorting and twisting until they became something else entirely.

_Brains._

_Brains,_ Ravi found himself thinking. “No…” he whispered, turning his head to the side. “No…please…brains- _no…_ ” he began gasping, an awful, gut wrenching feeling working its way through his abdomen. “Please…please _no…_ ” he continued quietly, his normally neat British accent pitching and plunging in all the wrong places as he sought – seemingly in vain – to take back control of what he had once thought of as his own body. “Please…I’m s-so hungry…” Ravi softly moaned, his control slipping as he found himself imagining all the different ways he could get what he wanted, what he now needed so badly. Ways of vivid intensity in which to exert his overwhelming, undeniable rage upon the world, upon his _prey._ But he wouldn’t let himself leave the sofa – he wasn’t even quite sure that he could, given how much it hurt to so much as think about moving, about doing anything other than what he wished so very, very much he could. So…so much _want. Need._ He needed to…he needed to _feed._ To _act,_ to _release._

He felt his mind sharpen, being given a distorted, hazy form of clarity and focus as the pain began to numb and the line between him and his new impulses blurred and faded away, leaving in its wake nothing; nothing that the person he once was, nor the person he’d turned into, could do about any of it. Fortunately for him, this version of Ravi didn’t quite care anymore. All he knew, and all he wanted to know, was what his instincts told him, and he was more than happy to do their bidding, to comply with what the lulling, almost hypnotic promise in his ear spoke of. He took two steps towards the door, more than ready to sate this new hunger, only to suddenly jerk back against the pillows, rendered powerless to stand. “No…” he moaned, the word twisting and turning as it came out of his mouth and his movements slow and useless as he reached for the door. 

_No,_ Ravi thought wearily, doing everything to hold himself back. His arms were spread back wide against the sofa cushions, held in place by an invisible force he couldn’t identify beyond a will that was and yet wasn’t his own in equal measure. His face clenched and contorted as each and every one of his veins and arteries were set aflame, as every neuron and vertebrae were frozen solid and shattered. Streams of sweat ran down his cheeks, down his back, down his arms, but he couldn’t feel anything beyond the roaring emptiness he felt himself becoming. A snuffed-out flame clawing at its own ashes, existing in nothing more than desperation; a desperation beyond words for anything, anything at all, that might give it a semblance of the feeling it once knew as _life._ But Ravi didn’t feel dead. He felt beyond death. He felt that death, in this moment, would be a mercy. He couldn’t think, only wished that this would end. He didn’t care how. He couldn’t care about anything, about everything, everyone he’d be leaving behind. About Liv, Peyton, Major and Clive, about everything he’d been working towards, about the world he still needed to make his place in. In this moment, none of that mattered. In this moment, none of that could matter, because Ravi was slowly ripping apart, burning to tatters, and being sent reeling into a special hell of his very own making.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

The pain soon took him into the shadows, and he didn’t have it in him to hold out any longer. What last, fading threads of thought he’d been clinging to had faded, and he was dragged under, quickly submerged beneath the currents of darkness.

And with that, Ravi died.

And then some.

***

The next day, Ravi awoke to sun streaming in from the window behind him, the news playing on the television, and a dull ringing already receding from edges of his mind. He sat up with a groan, rubbing his head and blinking to adjust to the light, a fading ache reminiscent of last night’s ordeal still lingering in his bones. He looked around, seeing Liv settled in the sofa next to him, her eyes clouded over and lost in thought. “Liv.” He said gently, lightly prodding her on the shoulder. She slowly turned to look at him, giving him a tired smile and a look that said she hadn’t been able to sleep.

“Hey, Ravi. Are you…are you hungry?” she asked, looking at him with slight concern.

Ravi took a moment to consider the question, looking at his hands – now back to their normal tone of brown – and then felt the dull, familiar throbbing of hunger in his stomach, in the back of his mind. What was it saying? Did it prompt him in the general direction of whatever breakfast foods his kitchen had to offer, or did it whisper softly in his ear of the achingly lulling promise of brains? What had happened inside of him, after everything he’d gone through the night before?

But when he listened, when he cleared his mind and let it speak for itself, he found the answer.

He’d died, yes.

He’d simply done it too well, and thusly come back to life.

“Liv,” he breathed, still staring at his arms, turning them back and forth in a growing joy. “I’m not.” He looked up, the smile on his face stretching from one ear to the other. “I’m not.” He repeated, the realization building moment by moment. “It worked, Liv, it actually worked!” he broke off in a laugh, standing up and pulling her into a hug. “The bloody vaccine worked!”

“I’m so proud of you,” Liv whispered, pulling away with a weary smile. “You did it.”

Ravi sat back down, grabbing his phone to text Major, when he realized that the device was open to his voice recordings, specifically the ones from the night before. One was only a minute long, the first one, but the second spanned across twenty minutes, much longer than his little voice notes usually did. Liv leaned closer, looking at the screen and frowning. “Ravi…what did you record from last night?” she asked, seeing the time and looking at him in concern. He looked down, away, anywhere but at his dear friend whose worry he wished to spare, and she gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “Ravi,” she said softly, taking the phone from his hands before he could keep her from doing so. She hit play on the first one, listening to Ravi’s words from before the vaccine had seemingly taken effect. She then chewed on her lip, and hit play on the second one. It started with his distorted stammering, which caught her attention immediately, and soon tapered off into his gasping and whimpering, all the screams he held back and all the cries of pain he couldn’t filling the room in a silence that grew quieter and yet louder as each second passed. Once the recording finished, Liv was frozen in shock, Ravi’s hands trembling but the rest of him still. He was leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and his gaze to the floor. “…Ravi?” Liv asked, his name ringing out in the room, only to be answered by its own echo and nothing more. “Ravi. What. _Happened._ ” Liv repeated, emotion building with each word.

“I…I don’t really know,” Ravi murmured, unable to meet her gaze. “Presumably, it was an effect of the vaccine, but—” Liv cut him off. 

“Ravi. You were saying the word _brains._ You were in _pain._ ”

“…it’s nothing, I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.” Ravi said, the words hard and raw.

“I don’t need to _worry?_ Ravi, you were…it sounded like you were _dying!_ ” Liv exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air.

“You don’t. Need. To worry.” Ravi repeated, his jaw clenched. He silently willed Liv to stop, to stop fueling what he felt bubbling up within him. “I’m perfectly fine, everything is _fine._ ”

“Ravi—”

“I’m _FINE!_ ” Ravi shouted, suddenly on his feet and staring her straight in the face. His eyes had turned into void-like pits of red, ones Liv knew well. She knew them well, because they were the eyes of a zombie. She looked at him, and felt that sinking feeling in her heart as she saw him like this. She’d done this. She’d been the one to scratch him. He turned his head away, his eyes half-closed from the angle. “I’m fine, Liv.” He murmured in a lingering anger, taking his phone back before she could stop him and walking up the stairs into his room.

“Everything’s fine.”

***

After he pressed the door shut behind him, Ravi leaned back against it, his head tilted upwards and his eyes closed. He pressed his arms and his back onto the cool painted wood and tried to breathe, to calm himself down, to bring himself back from the roaring waves of emotion tearing across his thoughts. Was this what he was, now? Not quite a zombie, but not quite human, either? Was he…something else entirely, now? Was he even the same person?

He wasn’t quite sure anymore, if he was being honest.

He sank down onto the floor, resting his face in knees and letting his heavy breaths cloud his vision. He wrapped his hands over his legs and felt almost instinctively for his pulse, the way he always did when he needed to remind himself that he was a person; that people make mistakes, and that he needs to take a moment, collect himself, learn from whatever it was as best as he could, and move on. This tactic, this habit, this philosophy in and of itself, had gotten him through a lot; at least, as much as it could. But this time, Ravi was scared of what he would feel. This time, he needed to know he was still human, still the person he’d come to know himself as. He sat, waiting, counting the faint beating in his wrists. It was slow, slower than it should’ve been, but the pulse was steady, too steady to be that of a zombie. Ravi released a deep breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and let one leg slide to the ground. What now? He found himself wondering. He looked down at his hands, as though trying to fathom what they could possibly be capable of. He watched his fingers clench and unclench as if they could, at any moment, betray his already waning trust in them and act on the will of someone else; on the will of the empty void he’d felt himself becoming mere hours before. He couldn’t be certain that he’d never be that person again, could he? No, he couldn’t.

His thoughts were interrupted by the growling of his stomach, and with a sigh, Ravi stood up, and opened his door.

All he could really do, he supposed, was hope that the worst was behind him.

***

“Hi, Liv.” He murmured as he descended the stairs and saw her standing by the door. She turned around in surprise, clearly not having expected him to reappear so soon. She took a moment to take in her friend’s presence, and before he could slip through her fingers again, her arms were around him, holding him tight and keeping him here with her.

“I’m so sorry, Ravi.” She whispered. “I did this.”

“No, no, Liv, don’t think like that.” Ravi said, moving so that his hands were on her shoulders and so that he could look into her eyes. “Please, don’t hold yourself responsible. I’m the one who insisted that you scratch me, the one who took the vaccine myself. You didn’t…you’re not at fault, here. Okay?”

Liv responded with a faint nod. “How does…how do you feel?” she asked, pulling away and standing in front of him.

“I…” he started, running a hand through his hair and resting the other on his hip. “I’ve been better, yeah. It’s…it’s strong. Is that a normal zombie thing, the whole, emotional overload?”

“Not really…it’s mostly just full-on zombie mode. Not as…in between, as this.”

“Hm. Somehow my heartrate is stuck between that of a zombie and that of a human as well, so that’s another…in-between, for you.” He said, quirking his gaze in a playful thoughtfulness.

“You’re sure you’re not…zombie hungry? Not even a little?”

“I’m really not sure. I know I’m hungry in general, though...” He replied, lightheartedly nudging her. “Truth be told, it’s probably the only reason I left my room at all.” She laughed, the light sound cutting softly through the room. He smiled, glad that he could help her shed some of her weariness, that he could help her bear the burdens she’d taken upon herself. He didn’t want to be a cause of her worry; as her friend, it was his job to distract her from the woes of life, insist that she’d done everything she could until she believed it. 

Sure, he might be stuck in between. In between two mental states, in between two forms of life, in between two worlds of feeling.

But…at the end of it…at least he wasn’t alone.

****

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I know you might be going like "hey how is this canon compliant", and yeah, that's fair. This isn't exactly how we see him on the show after this point in time, or really ever. (which is unfortunate; I so wish that I could see some fics, ones that I've written and ones that I've had the pleasure of reading, acted out or animated or actually done visually.)  
> Anyway  
> Not canon compliant, you wonder? Well, do you remember how in the first episode of season four, Ravi says that's he's been scratched by Liv multiple times? I didn't really wanna have him ask her to scratch him again after he'd successfully distracted her from her worries, because firstly, it'd be redundant; we already saw Concerned Mom Liv in this oneshot. But furthermore, he's being a good friend, and I thought that was a good place to leave off. He wouldn't be asking her that day, and I didn't feel like adding an epilogue where he just gets in some fairly redundant angst by asking her to scratch him again, just to keep things canon compliant. I felt like that would kind of tarnish the rest of it, and I didn't see the point of that. So, basically, just assume that after this, at some point, before the first episode of season four takes place, that Ravi gets her to scratch him again, and idk, every time he starts to stabilize more, until his situation kind of levels out as we've come to know it. (that being his "monthlies"). 
> 
> Okay so here's an addition from future me (owo time travel haha) I watched the episode, the one whose teaser inspired this, and dang that was a good episode like because of this the energy behind it wow I found myself enjoying that episode so much more than I'd expected to, my having harnessed that strong muse energy and having put it in the direction of this show just really strengthened my love for the things I wrote about and idk I thought I'd put this here. Also, just a little something else that's random but still related, which of the brains Ravi has been on are your favorites? For me, personally, I'm a sucker for this kind of angst (which you'll probably have figured out if you've read the rest of my writing) so I was definitely able to enjoye S4 EP6 when he ate the heroin addict brain, but Ravi on White Girl's brain just made me smile and cringe and laugh so much; it was and is and hopefully shall forever remain brilliant, at least to me.
> 
> Okay, I think that's enough fan rambling for now.
> 
> Thank you very much, I hope you enjoyed, and please let me know what you thought! :-)


End file.
